Just Some Thoughts (another sick day...)

So, I'm sick again (grumble grumble).  I'm pretty sure I've managed to catch every nasty cold most British kids get the whole time they're in primary school.  Eventually my immune system has to catch up...sigh.  But in the meantime, I've actually been really productive in getting homework done, and after a week I am finally feeling a lot better.
Last night I went to my friend's 21st birthday party, which was Sex and the City themed and a lot of fun.  Here we are with her big balloons:

The thing that makes her party blog-worthy (aside from how great it was), though, is the fact that just for her birthday, just because she wanted to, she had a ceilidh (traditional Scottish dance).  Since so many of her friends are part of New Scotland and/or Scottish, we were able to just go for it.  A few of the dances were taught, but for the most part such a large percentage of the group knew the steps that they were able to just drag the few people who didn't through them.  It was pretty awesome, and something I wish I could do at home.  Unfortunately, I haven't quite trained my friends that well...yet.

Other than that, there isn't much to report.  Lots of homework (only 4 weeks left of semester 2 classes! aahh!) and getting over the plague...again.  I made chicken soup from scratch today, almost the way my mom makes it-I can't get the stuff to make matzo balls here.  It did get me thinking about how magical chicken soup is, though, which reminded me of a great book I read as a kid: Stone Soup.
It's an old folk tale, and there are lots of versions of it, but the basic story is that there is a village somewhere that is having a famine.  People have food in their homes, but no one really has enough to eat.  Then a man comes to town with a cast iron pot, and offers to make stone soup to share with the village.  He fills the pot with water and drops in a plain old stone.  As it boils he says "you know what would make this soup even better? cabbage! oh, well..." and lo and behold, one of the villagers offers a cabbage they were hiding under the bed.  This continues until all of the village families have offered something, and together everyone's meager offerings have created a wonderful, delicious soup!

Maybe my first graders can try reading it.  Soup is great stuff, and teamwork is even better.  My flatmate and I have been studying hard all week, and we're sharing my soup for dinner tonight :)